FlowPlay Chief Executive Derrick Morton, the former general manager of mobile games at RealNetworks, said the company is currently testing the final versions of the product. He declined to say when a formal launch is slated, though one should look for it in early spring.

Since FlowPlay is building a virtual world that incorporates casual gaming, Morton said it was a little tougher to raise capital than the average Web 2.0 startup that can quickly roll out a Web service to consumers.

“If they get a little traction, they’ll be able to raise money. We, on the other hand, have a very complex entertainment product which required a lot of resources and time to build,” he said. “Some of the individual features of our product would be as much as many startups would take on. We were lucky enough to have a strong group of angels who were excited about our vision. This gave us enough runway to build the beta product that got us in the door at the VC level.”

I previously reported on the Seattle company’s fundraising efforts last fall, noting that it had already turned down a few buyout offers.

Flowplay plans to make money by charging a $5.99 per month subscription, with a goal of about 80,000 users to break even.

Charging a monthly fee is a model that worked well for virtual world creator Club Penguin, which sold to The Walt Disney Co. last year for as much as $700 million. Club Penguin charges $5.95 per month.